


Lesser Miracles

by nowstfucallicles



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, M/M, Miracles, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Armageddon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 13:17:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20967182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowstfucallicles/pseuds/nowstfucallicles
Summary: Crowley may not be able to sense love. But he does feel miracles.





	Lesser Miracles

Crowley kept turning the bottle of Scotch in his hand. He didn’t remember when he had gotten into the habit of bringing something for Aziraphale. Bit much, wasn’t it? Gifts. Not something a demon should be seen doing, sacked or not. He peered into the bookshop, the rain running cool down his collar, then he knocked on the door again, louder this time. He knew Aziraphale was there. It wasn’t long before the lights inside grew brighter. 

“It _is_ you,” Aziraphale opened the door, smiling. “I had a feeling you might be back.” 

“Thought I’d drop by.” Crowley stepped up. He lifted his shades with a grin, catching the angel’s eye.

“You look _drenched_… well, never mind.”

Aziraphale ushered him inside. He was still wearing his white gloves, rubbing them together in pleasant surprise. He was looking Crowley over, carefully, then he waved a hand towards him. Crowley stood still for a moment. He could feel the miracle like a warm breeze. Feel it through his skin and a little below. It brushed him, and in the blink of an eye he was dry again. 

He remembered the Scotch and handed it to Aziraphale. “Little something I picked up. Southern Highlands.” 

“Oh, thank you…” The angel’s smile deepened as he gave it a closer glance.

“Made the trip a lot more bearable, I can tell you that.”

Crowley followed him to the back, falling behind a little to glance around the lamp-lit shop. He slid his fingers along the shelves, spotting a few new arrivals here and there. Art history, anthologies. By the looks of it, not much had happened over the last few weeks. He sniffed the air, the smell of the place. It was the same as always, worn, crumbling, with a whiff of the sublime. Of angelic presence. No other place smelled like this. Nothing on Earth, or elsewhere. 

Aziraphale brought out a pair of tumblers, still studying the bottle. “What on Earth were you doing all the way up in--“ The angel fell silent for a moment. He looked up, somewhat displeased. “Crowley, tell me it’s not what I think it is...”

“Just some stuff,” Crowley said. “Got a bit bored… thought I’d take a look around.”

“It’s all over the papers.” Aziraphale shook his head. “‘Potentially uncontrollable Scottish independence.’ This is your doing, of course.” 

“So, there’s a bit of a hubbub. That’s not on me.” 

“Oh, it’s scarcely a coincidence,” Aziraphale said. “You’ve been stoking the flames, haven’t you, tempting politicians and whatever else?”

The angel, too. The same as always. Slow and clever, too clever, really, for his own preachings. There was a pitch in his voice now, a bit of a whine Crowley just _knew_. He knew they were off on a slightly bad start. He also knew how to manoeuvre it.

“I barely do anything, angel,” he said. “Most of the time, humans just want to hear their own bad ideas repeated back to them.” 

Aziraphale gave him a long, disapproving look. Then another headshake.

“It’s not as bad as you think. Not like I did any real damage.” Crowley sat down by the desk, rocking slowly backwards. Not exactly true. He’d been quite successful in his dealings, but he wasn’t going to get into that. “Besides, what do you want me to do? Demons don’t retire. There are no pensioners of Hell.”

As a whole, having been renounced by his lot, hadn’t made much of a difference to Crowley. It had been a little weird, right after Armageddon. But then he had found himself becoming pretty comfortable, pretty quickly. No more orders. No supervision. No bureaucracy. He’d figured he might as well keep doing what he’d been doing all along. Hell had never bothered to replace him up here, anyway, which made him a sort of freelancer. In a similar way Aziraphale had become one, quite naturally, for Upstairs business. 

“We’ll see about that,” the angel said.

“About what?”

“Your little Scottish operation,” Aziraphale said quietly. “We’ll see how it goes.” 

Crowley cocked an eyebrow at him. “Are you… you’re really thinking about getting involved? It’s politics. You _hate_ politics.”

“Well. Doing good is rarely easy. It’s not supposed to be.”

“Trust me, you don’t want any part of this. Should have seen the places I was staying. Tough crowd, too…”

“Don’t even try to talk me out of it,” Aziraphale said lightly. “It’s going to be interesting.”

He handed Crowley a glass of Scotch and leant back into the sofa. Crowley caught his smile. A small one, almost a grin, but secretly, impossibly delighted. So he did have something up his sleeve. Some counter-plan, already. And while Crowley could have done without the angel’s meddling, he knew he’d be enjoying it anyway. Always did. Even back in the day, he’d rather liked their little encounters in the field. 

For a few moments he just watched Aziraphale. He felt it more, on nights like this. When it was just the two of them, sitting here, drinking. Doing nothing. It was a strange little thing, really. A miserable, lovely little feeling, being drawn to the angel. Being aware of him, sharply, restlessly, like this. None of it surprised Crowley anymore, but it didn’t mean he was getting used to it. 

“Let me put it this way,” he said. Picking up right where he had left off. “This job’s all about getting into people’s heads. Well, heads and hearts. Between the two of us, temptation’s not really your strong suit…”

To his surprise, he saw Aziraphale’s eyes light up. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

“Huh?” 

“I’ve done quite a bit of… well, not tempting, obviously.” There was a touch of smugness in the angel’s voice. “Only demons tempt. But angels do something very similar, if you remember. One could say I’ve quite mastered the art.” 

Crowley tasted the Scotch. It really was a good one. “The art of what, exactly?” 

“Guiding souls to their salvation,” Aziraphale said. Then, pointedly: “I got commended for it with some regularity.”

It didn’t ring a bell with Crowley. _Guiding souls to their salvation._ Even the sound of it, the phrasing, it reeked of Heaven. Discreetly thuggish, but with an offer of hope. Of something better. The same old shtick.

“Right,” Crowley muttered. “Heaven wouldn’t know a good temptation if they walked right into it.”

He saw Aziraphale bristle. His jaw tensed and his eyes were glinting, charmingly, irritably, from across the table. Crowley sank back in his seat, letting his arms hang down. He wanted to get closer. His hands were slowly opening and closing, wanting to touch. Wanting _something_. It came and went, these days, whether he was here, or on the other side of the country, or the globe. He drew a deep breath, waiting for it to ease off. He could have willed it away. Could have looked away, too. But the thing was, he didn’t really want it gone.

“I’ll have you know,” Aziraphale said, “when it comes to winning hearts and souls, there is nothing like an angel’s persuasiveness.”

At another time, Crowley might have laughed. Instead, there was a hint of curiosity now. He leant forward, watching Aziraphale.

“Prove it.” 

Aziraphale set aside his glass. He was looking doubtful, slightly annoyed. But then his eyes flickered away, and then back to Crowley, and Crowley knew. He knew he had an angle.

“Let’s see some of that persuasion,” he said. He had never gotten a glimpse of it, in all of his years on Earth. Heaven didn’t really seem to market it. “Seriously. I know a thing or two about tempting. I know quality when I see it…”

“You’ll have to take my word for it.” Aziraphale shifted in his seat. “It’s not the kind of act one does frivolously.”

“Come on. A little demonstration?”

Aziraphale was watching him with a frown. It was never an easy thing, getting an angel to go against their better judgement. And Aziraphale _knew him_. Wasn’t like whispering questionable ideas to humans. You needed conviction, for one thing. And some pretty good timing. 

“Let’s hear it,” Crowley continued. “What would you do to… what was it, ‘guide me to salvation’?”

“_You?_”

“For the sake of argument. How would you go about it?”

“Well. You’re a demon. I don’t even think you can be… you know?” 

“I’m not actually asking you to,” Crowley groaned. “Just, pretend.”

“But what for?”

“Bit of goodness? Can be nothing wrong with that…”

“Well. No. I mean, technically…” Aziraphale paused. _That’s it_, Crowley thought. That weird angelic urge to do good. Always hard to resist, for them. “I mean, there is goodness involved. Quite a bit, actually.” 

Aziraphale looked around. A bit like back in the day, as if to make sure no one was watching them. Then he indicated the place next to him. Crowley was strangely intrigued. He had a vague idea of what angelic tempting looked like, and it mostly involved singing Heaven’s praises to some wretched, unsuspecting mortal. Not exactly competition.

“I like to ease them into it…” Aziraphale was still looking hesitant. 

“Do your worst.” 

“Alright. Just, wait… let me…” 

The angel stretched out his hand. He held it up by Crowley’s head, who sat quite still. 

It stung. The light, as it touched his skin, seeping into him through his temple, right into his thoughts. Right into his soul. Heaven’s light. The sheer force of ethereal order. Crowley stirred, suddenly wanting to get away from it. A terrible light, even though it couldn’t harm him at all. Pure, but motionless, an eternal stare.

“You do this to humans?” he muttered, and Aziraphale stopped, his hand curling away. “How in --whoever’s name does this count as temptation?”

“It works,” Aziraphale insisted. “Actually, I thought you might like it. Doesn’t it feel like… like home, a little?”

“Nope.” 

But something else did, Crowley remembered. Something Aziraphale had done before. That he did all the time. A standard angelic power, they all had it and they all used it, there were times when it hung in the air like background radiation. But when he felt it around Aziraphale, it was the one thing that reminded him of Heaven. A different Heaven, the one he had known back then. Perhaps there was something to it…

“Miracle something, angel.” 

“What do you mean?”

“I think you almost got it right. Give me a small miracle, doesn’t matter what.“

“Alright…” Aziraphale glanced around, trying to think of something. Then he blinked, and the glass in Crowley’s hand spontaneously refilled itself. 

It wasn’t quite what Crowley had in mind, but he had felt it alright. A touch. Beyond fleeting. A warmth brushing against him that he could never have, could never quite feel, just in passing, just like this, right before the miracle materialized. Aziraphale’s power, his essence, willing things into existence. It was what he felt like. It was what lived in this soft, fragile body. It wasn’t like Heaven, not vast and empty and all-seeing. 

“That’s more like it,” Crowley muttered.

“I could try again,” Aziraphale said helpfully. “Let me think… ”

Before Crowley could answer, the glass was gone from his hand. And then it was back. Expensive, vintage, filled with a pale green liquid. Crowley smelled it. Absinthe, the kind you couldn’t get anywhere now. The kind that had done more to turn people towards sin than the entire boardroom of Hell.

Crowley had felt it again, stronger this time. Aziraphale’s own light, taking shape, just for an instant.

“What does it feel like,” Aziraphale asked, “when I miracle something?”

_You_, Crowley thought. _It feels like you. It feels like you’re closer than you are, like I can sense you, not just through my body. It feels good._

He took a drink of Absinthe and looked at Aziraphale. “Angelic?”

“Oh? Alright then…“ Aziraphale seemed to be thinking it over. “Let me try something else.”

He lifted his hand again, holding it up by Crowley’s head, just like before. He closed his eyes and then there was something like a pulse. It was like a glow from within, and at the same time Crowley could feel it all around him. It was behind his eyes. It was like a blink of light inside his soul. Gentle enough to trap the breath in his chest. Overwhelmingly familiar, except it had never been so close. 

Then it stopped. Aziraphale was staring at him, looking slightly worried. 

“It’s what I do when I perform a miracle,” he explained. “I tap into… well, the Above.”

“Doesn’t feel like that at all,” Crowley paused. “Just feels like…”

He had nearly said it this time. _You. Always feels like you._ He was beginning to wonder if he had lost the plot. The situation was slowly setting in, the nature of what they were doing, and it wasn’t at all the little game he had started before. It was the real thing. A temptation, a rather good one at that, and he would have been hard pressed to say which one of them was doing it to the other. 

Aziraphale’s hand was still hovering by his temple. Then Crowley could feel something else that made him shudder. The angel’s finger tips. In his hair, behind his ear. He could feel his skin come alive under their touch. They were oozing light into him. Love. Not the kind he had left behind, the kind that had been lost to him for millennia now. No, this light belonged with him. It was Aziraphale’s. The light that lived in his miracles, that was him, not Her, not Heaven. Nearness.

Crowley swallowed. Suddenly wary of any movement, any sound that could leave him. Anything that could give him away. 

“I want to…” Aziraphale began. There was an undercurrent, an alarming sound, lodged in his voice. He was closing the distance between them. With the whole of his body, his hand still in Crowley’s hair, still touching. Still holding that sweet, incomparable light. “Crowley… I can feel what it is to you.” 

“It won’t save me. If that’s what you think you’re doing here.” Crowley took off his shades, his hand not quite steady. He looked Aziraphale in the eye. “Won’t work on me…”

“No, I know. That’s not why…“ Aziraphale’s fingers slid to the back of his head. And for a moment it was just that. Just a touch. No light. No miracle. It was a caress. “I just want to give it to you. Just want you to have it.”

The rawness of it. The gaping, unspeakable truth of it. Crowley froze and his mouth fell open. He didn’t know where to go from here. The angel’s hand was caressing the back of his head and then it rushed through him again, that pulse. That love. Not the glory of Heaven. Not all that endless light. It was less clear, but merciful. Grace, tainted by the world. Fleshly and fleshless. It smelled, it sounded. It felt… like the only thing he had ever truly loved.

“And this…” Aziraphale whispered. “This, too.”

His forehead sank against Crowley’s. There was the light, still connecting them. And there was something else. Crowley could feel it through his skin, something unsteady. Rushing. Something he had never felt before, had never gotten close enough to feel. He reached out with his hands, not yet touching the other. But Aziraphale did, with a soft gasp against his cheek. An inaudible sound as his lips suddenly brushed Crowley’s. The barest of touches, laden with disbelief and making Crowley clutch at him at last. Making him grab fistfuls of shirt, of _him_. 

He couldn’t believe it would last, not even for another moment. Couldn’t believe his luck, even as he looked at Aziraphale and saw the same heated tenderness. The same hushed excitement he had felt before. The angel’s eyes drifted shut and he was leaning in again. His lips found Crowley’s, and this time Crowley opened to him with a hiss. Slipping into his taste, suddenly, trusting the momentum of it, trusting it more than he had ever trusted his judgement. 

A human taste, almost. Warm with the flimsy, bare heat of these bodies. Crowley pressed up against him, tasting the soft crook below his jaw. The feel of him. Ever-present, beyond reach. He kissed him, just like Aziraphale’s light had kissed him before, slowly, devotedly. Perhaps it hadn’t been impossible at all. Not even half as fantastical as he had always thought. Because the way he was being tasted, breathed. Felt. It had been a long time coming. Ages. Long, ridiculous centuries.

He could feel it like a dazed realization, and his lips slackened against Aziraphale’s, long enough for the angel to lean back and look at him. Aziraphale was glowing. Looking a little worried, looking flustered. As if he had just caught himself, a little too late. Crowley’s touch slowed to a halt and his fingers rested against Aziraphale’s vest. He was staring back at the angel, baffled. 

“I… I feel the need to apologize…” Aziraphale said, with a faint smile.

“Don’t you dare,” Crowley muttered.

“Perhaps I…” The angel’s voice trailed off. He picked up his glass, fidgeting with it. “I should have known, I think.”

“Really?”

“It’s a bit embarrassing…” 

There was a brief silence, then Crowley nodded. He could see his point, sort of. Angels were supposed to sniff out this kind of stuff, weren’t they? Love and all that. From the looks of it, Aziraphale had never even gotten close. Crowley reached over and poured them both another drink of Scotch. He could still feel Aziraphale’s touch, in the back of his mind. In his skin. His soul. Another thing he’d never get used to. 

He clinked his glass to Aziraphale’s, and he could see the shift in his expression, the way his eyes softened and narrowed. It still took him by surprise, if only for a moment, when the angel moved closer again. This time, without hesitance. 

“You know what’s really embarrassing?” Crowley began. Then, in a slow whisper against Aziraphale’s lips: “Getting beaten at tempting… by an angel.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!


End file.
